The present invention relates to a transfer station for transferring bristle filaments which are infeedable to the transfer station in bristle bundles, said bristle bundles gathering the bristle filaments as a bundle via at least one band, to a magazine, the bristle filaments being stored in said magazine.
In brush-making machines bristle filaments are inserted into a brush body. The bristle filaments which are inserted into the brush body subsequently form the bristle field of a brush.
A brush-making machine having a multi-compartment magazine for infeeding bristle bundles from dissimilar bristle reserves to a bundle separator for a stuffing tool is known from DE 197 45 024 A1, the bundle separator having a separator notch. The multi-compartment magazine has a plurality of infeeding ducts which may be filled with the aid of a loading installation for bristle material. The loading installation has a storage magazine which has a number of obliquely disposed receptacle compartments for in each case a plurality of bristle bundles, said number corresponding to the number of magazine infeeding ducts. Here, the individual bristle bundles are sheathed with a covering, for example of paper, which prior to the bristle material being infed to the infeeding ducts is removed in that gripping pliers retrieve the bristle material from the covering. The uncovered bristle material may then be taken over to the uncovering station by an infeeding gripper and deposited into one of the infeeding ducts.
A further brush-making machine having a stuffing installation which has a bundle separator having a separator notch has been previously known from DE 101 60 220 A1. The bundle separator is assigned a multi-compartment magazine having a plurality of infeeding ducts for bristles. A storage installation for bristles is provided so as to be spatially removed from the multi-compartment magazine. Here, an intermediate conveying installation having a gripper serves for the removal of bristles from the storage installation and for the transfer thereof into one of the infeeding ducts of the multi-compartment magazine.
In the case of these two brush-making machines which per se have been successful, the bristle material with the aid of the loading installation or with the aid of the intermediate conveying installation, respectively, may be removed from the bristle reserve and transferred to the magazine in an automated manner, since the bristle material which is processed on these brush-making machines is composed of bristle filaments which across their entire length are cylindrically configured.
Chemically tapered bristle filaments which are also referred to as “tapered filaments” have already been created. These tapered bristle filaments which taper off in a wafer-thin bristle tip are increasingly used on a world-wide scale in order for particularly soft toothbrushes to be achieved therewith. Since these bristle filaments are particularly thin, such tapered bristle filaments are to this day still manually placed into the magazine of a brush-making machine. Such a magazine which is also referred to as a material hopper has at least one conveying track which on both sides is delimited by a side strip and which is disposed upstream of a stuffing tool of the brush-making machine.
The chemically tapered bristle elements are typically offered in bristle bundles which are mostly consolidated so as to be of a round cross section. The bristle filaments of a bristle bundle here are held together by at least one band and preferably by at least one rubber band. During manual placing of the bristle filaments which are still held together as a bundle the bristle bundle is put on the base plate of the magazine and subsequently indexed between the side strips of a conveying track which is provided in the magazine up to pushers which are displaceable on both sides of the side strips. Thereafter, the rubber bands which still hold the bristle bundles together are removed, so as to draw the pushers via pressure onto a sensor behind the bristle filaments which are now no longer in a bundle, so that the pushers can press the fresh bristle material against the bristle filaments which are already located in the conveying track. Since the tapered bristle filaments must always be well encompassed, it often arises that the pusher which laterally projects beyond the side strips also pushes onto the fingers. Since the pressure acting on the pusher is not very high, only slight pressure points arise. Since the brush-making machine during the placing phase of the bristle bundles should not be stopped, the magazine moves when switching over from one bristle color to another bristle color has to take place. Due to this, serious pinching may arise, also due to lack of attention of the operator. Such pinching and the injuries to the operator related thereto must, however, be positively avoided.